Compensation (a Fable)

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Title:     Compensation (a Fable)
Author: James Anthony Froude [More Titles by Froude]

One day an Antelope was lying with her fawn at the foot of the flowering Mimosa. The weather was intensely sultry, and a Dove, who had sought shelter from the heat among the leaves, was cooing above her head.

'Happy bird!' said the Antelope. 'Happy bird! to whom the air is given for an inheritance, and whose flight is swifter than the wind. At your will you alight upon the ground, at your will you sweep into the sky, and fly races with the driving clouds; while I, poor I, am bound a prisoner to this miserable earth, and wear out my pitiable life crawling to and fro upon its surface.'

Then the Dove answered, 'It is sweet to sail along the sky, to fly from land to land, and coo among the valleys; but, Antelope, when I have sate above amidst the branches and watched your little one close its tiny lips upon your breast, and feed its life on yours, I have felt that I could strip off my wings, lay down my plumage, and remain all my life upon the ground only once to know such blessed enjoyment.'

The breeze sighed among the boughs of the Mimosa, and a voice came trembling out of the rustling leaves: 'If the Antelope mourns her destiny, what should the Mimosa do? The Antelope is the swiftest among the animals. It rises in the morning; the ground flies under its feet--in the evening it is a hundred miles away. The Mimosa is feeding its old age on the same soil which quickened its seed cell into activity. The seasons roll by me and leave me in the old place. The winds sway among my branches, as if they longed to bear me away with them, but they pass on and leave me behind. The wild birds come and go. The flocks move by me in the evening on their way to the pleasant waters. I can never move. My cradle must be my grave.'

Then from below, at the root of the tree, came a voice which neither bird, nor Antelope, nor tree had ever heard, as a Rock Crystal from its prison in the limestone followed on the words of the Mimosa.

'Are ye all unhappy?' it said. 'If ye are, then what am I? Ye all have life. You! O Mimosa, you! whose fair flowers year by year come again to you, ever young, and fresh, and beautiful--you who can drink the rain with your leaves, who can wanton with the summer breeze, and open your breast to give a home to the wild birds, look at me and be ashamed. I only am truly wretched.'

'Alas!' said the Mimosa, 'we have life, which you have not, it is true. We have also what you have not, its shadow--death. My beautiful children, which year by year I bring out into being, expand in their loveliness only to die. Where they are gone I too shall soon follow, while you will flash in the light of the last sun which rises upon the earth.'

[The end]
James Anthony Froude's short story: Compensation (a Fable)

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